Articles by Hazel Percy

The Awesome Power of Trusting God NEW

April 14, 2015 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

By Hazel Percy

A couple of months ago, I felt the need to reconsider my priorities, before God, about how I spend my time. I live in the UK and have had a leafletting job for the past year or so now, which, as you can imagine, is physically tiring. For several months last year, I was delivering 2000 leaflets a week, which involved me walking 9-10 hours a week. Around November time, I reduced it to 1000 per week. Plus, once a month I do an additional leafletting job for a friend, which means that during that week, I do even more walking. Also, as some of you know, I stutter and currently use a more demanding than normal way of breathing for speaking called ‘costal breathing’ (as taught by the McGuire Programme – for people who stutter). It helps to keep my diaphragm moving freely, even when there’s fear or anxiety present. Another factor in all of this was that in February, my family and I moved house. And, as I am the main painter/decorator in our family, that was a third physically demanding ‘thing to do’ which I had on my plate. As you can see, I needed some clarity from God about how I should be spending my time and energy. I only have so much in any one day!

About a month ago, as I was going to sleep, I had a ‘dream’. It was no ordinary dream. I felt like I was in a state of being half awake and half asleep. I’ve never been hypnotised, but I imagine it might feel something like that. The ‘dream’ was really vivid and immediately after it, I woke up. It was of a round, glass bowl of thick, yellow liquid (like custard) which was being poured out. And as it was being poured out, God was pouring more into the bowl. It seemed to me that God was saying that He provides what is needed. I was also reminded of a Christian book I’d read several years ago called ‘There is Always Enough’ by Rolland and Heidi Baker. I wasn’t sure what to make of the dream at the time, so I put it to the back of my mind.

As I brought ‘my priorities and how I spend my time’ before God a few weeks ago, I believe He said to me to focus on the ‘being’…………………and He would work out the doing’. Meaning, that I needed to focus on my relationship with Him, and to’ be’ as far as I was currently able, the confident and ‘real me’ in everyday life; something which has often been hidden away over many years. And He would tell me what He wanted me to ‘do’. I was reminded of the story of the Centurion’s Servant in Luke 7:1-10. Like the servant who always obeyed what the centurion asked him to do, all I had to do was to be obedient to what God asked me to do – knowing that He would equip me to do whatever that was. But I still wanted more clarity as to the detail!

Following on from this, the ‘need to reconsider my priorities’ became more defined. It became an inner conflict between ‘what I believed I had to do’ and ‘what I wanted to do.’ This simmered away in the back my mind for quite a while, but then came to the boil a couple of weeks ago. What I felt I had to do was my leafletting job, to help provide income for my family. Apart from the physical effort involved, this job involved me spending a lot of time alone, most days (as does the decorating). What I wanted to do and what I also felt I needed to do, was to spend a lot more time each day talking and interacting with people and to regularly push out my comfort zone; two areas which I believe are very important, to move away from stuttering and towards a greater ease of speaking in everyday situations.

I just couldn’t see a way out of this dilemma between ‘having to’ and ‘wanting to’. I felt trapped, as though I was being pulled in two directions in my mind. It was as if I was being forced to have a lifestyle which was going against moving towards the life of freedom, which I believe God wants me to have.

Something else which was playing into all of this, what that in March, I started giving talks to various church groups about how God is helping me to overcome stuttering – something which I believe God asked me to do many months ago. As I’ve been giving these talks, I’ve experienced like never before, how different my life could be, without stuttering. For whenever I give these talks and completely give myself over to God, trusting Him to help me, I have no problem at all speaking, as I share my story with these groups – speaking for 20-30 minutes at a time. In fact I thoroughly enjoy doing them, because at those times, I feel most alive, and am expressing the more confident and ‘real’ version of me. I.e. the person God created me to be.

When things ‘came to the boil’ with this issue, a couple of weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to Bob (Bodenhamer), expressing this inner conflict going on in my mind; as he has been working with me during recent months, to help me move forward with my ‘thinking’ in relation to stuttering. At the time, I didn’t know he was in hospital, and that his own needs were far greater than mine! When I found out about his situation, God gently reminded me that although He often brings other people alongside us, to help and support us at various stages of our lives, sometimes we have to go it alone – and come to a place where it is just ‘us’ and ‘God’. For ultimately, it’s what He says that counts the most. And so I spent some time speaking with and listening to God, using NLP. I needed to know the way forward – and urgently!

Dissociated, I saw an image of adult Hazel in the presence of Jesus, high in my field of vision. She was grey in colour, feeling withered, lifeless, down, head bowed. She was dragging a big net behind her, which contained leaflets, paintbrushes, her children and her husband. As if they were all her responsibility and owned by her.

Jesus said to her: “These are not your responsibility. You do not own them. I have given them to you for a time. They belong to me. You do not have to drag this big net around with you.” Then the Hazel in the image asked Jesus, “What is my responsibility?” Jesus said, “To love me and to show my love to others.”

I asked Jesus how the Hazel in the image could change from being grey to more vibrant and alive. He said to her “Let go of the net. It is not yours to carry”. Then Jesus said to ‘me’ who was looking at the image: “She needs my Holy Spirit flowing through her. It is blocked by all her ‘activity’, her ‘busyness’, her ‘weariness’. My river of life-giving water will supply all her needs. She needs to learn to trust me more. I can do amazing things if only she will let me, instead of holding on to those things she doesn’t need to hold on to. I will provide all her needs and those of her family – in abundance and in ways you don’t expect. I am the God of surprises. Don’t underestimate what I can do. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Nothing is beyond me. Nothing is too difficult for me. I am the God of the impossible. I make the ‘impossible’ possible. I make a way where there is no way. Through the forest – I know the path ahead. Follow me, trust me. I know where I am leading you. Somewhere good and beautiful, where you will flourish and be all that I created you to be. I did not create you to be ‘grey’ but to be vibrant and colourful and alive. Attractive to others so that others can see me through your life.”

I had a sense that I had too limited a view of God’s ability to provide. And that He is bigger than any leafletting job (or, in fact, any of our concerns at all). He is well able to provide in other ways. His ‘bank account’ is far greater than ours! I also had to acknowledge that the self-limiting beliefs I currently hold about what jobs I can and cannot do, due to stuttering, are not necessarily true (though that is still a difficult area for me!) And so I believed it right to reduce the hours of my main leafletting job even further, to only about 2 ½ hours per week (which is virtually nothing), and to trust God to provide for us financially, as a family, in another way. I knew that this was what I needed to do, and had a real sense of both peace and total confidence that God would provide for us in the future.

Several days later, Bob, having come out of hospital, replied to my e-mail. Part of his reply was:

“Let the Lord “surprise” you with what He has for you in the future.”

Now, here’s what happened next. My husband has had a job the other side of London for nearly three years now, which has meant him commuting across the city most days on buses/trains, with the journey taking maybe 1 ½ hours each way (which has increased since we moved house). Then he’s had extra traveling as part of the job itself. It has been such a strain on his health, and consequently on the rest of our family. We have been praying for a transfer so that he can work closer to home, almost since he started that job, and trusting God with it all. But it has been a trial. Well, last week he received an e-mail, saying that he is being re-located to an office much, much closer to home – starting this week! Which will mean a lot less traveling and therefore a lot less travel fares…………… which means significantly more ‘take home’ pay for him, and the rest of our family.

As God said to me, and as Bob indicated………. God is a God of surprises. And He has proved Himself faithful, yet again. As I was obedient to what I believed God was asking me to do, even though, on a human level, it initially looked like a further reduction in income, He made it up to us almost immediately and has provided for us in ‘another’ way. I now believe that that ‘dream’ I had about the bowl, which I mentioned earlier, was indeed from God – reminding me of His provision.

God is far, far greater than our problems. Even when we don’t immediately see answers to our prayers, He is always working in the background, for our good, in His way and in His time. We don’t always get the answers we expect and sometimes our patience is tested…………………. but God knows our every need and is always there ready to speak with us and help us through every stage of our lives.

Hazel Percy

April 2015

Growing Up Your Inner but Hurting Child NEW

March 24, 2015 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

“Read Hazel’s story of how she utilized Neuro-Linguistic Programing and Neuro-Semantics to re-imprint her inner child as well as her inner teenager. The original negative imprints had not served her well. Indeed, these earlier imprints which were located in her unconscious mind led to her constantly triggering her stuttering speaking strategy. She had lived her entire life as a PWS. Now, Hazel is utilizing what she has and is learning about how to run her own brain rather than letting stuttering do it for her. She is making steady progress with her speaking. But, even more important has been her launching out to area churches offering herself as a speaker to various groups sharing her life as a PWS. Her story is a remarkable one. Follow this link to her article and discover the power involved when you heal up that hurting inner child and teenager of the past.”

——————–

Hazel Percy
Bob Bodenhamer

[PDF Version of the article available here]

I (Bob) have been working with Hazel for some time, assisting her in the healing of unwanted fears and internal hurts that she had had for many years. On December 11^th 2014, I sent Hazel an e-mail, addressing various points that she, as a Person Who Stutters (PWS), had raised in previous e-mail interchanges. Some of this related to the ‘teenage ¹part’ of Hazel (See “Endnotes” for a further discussion about “Parts”.).

I gave her further questions to consider, and in addition, suggested that she run the ‘Growing Up’ Pattern (Technique or Exercise). The Pattern is found at the end of this article. However, bear in mind that before she ran the Growing Up Pattern, Hazel had already done some previous work on her memories as a teenager. She did this over several weeks. This work took place during the second half of last year (2014). My work with Hazel consisted of our using both the telephone and e-mail to communicate with each other.

For example, in January Hazel said: “I’d gone through many childhood/teenage memories using the²”Bitter Root to Jesus Pattern”, giving the pain to Jesus, with child/teenage me and the adult me forgiving the people involved. Also, during December, I had those two inner ‘conversations’ (self-talk), associated as teenage me, with Jesus and adult me. I had these conversations as a result of you (Bob) asking me the following, which related to the issue of ‘teenage me’ needing to feel good about herself:

What is blocking her from feeling good about herself?
Does her knowing Christ help her to feel good about herself?
Become that teenager; associate into her body, and ask her the above questions.
Let me know if you get anything new.

Associating/Dissociating

Note: In recalling a past memory, we can recall it in basically two ways:

We can recall it “associated”, which means that we mentally place ourselves back in that memory seeing through our own eyes, hearing the same sounds and feeling the very same as we did in the memory. You know that you are associated when you recall a memory and you do not see yourself in the memory. When associated, you are imagining yourself there in your body; thus, you are looking through the eyes of “then” and not the eyes of “now”.
The second way that we recall a memory is to recall it “dissociated”. When recalling a memory dissociated, you see yourself in the memory. You are recalling that memory and visually you see yourself back there in that memory. You see the younger you from the present you. Dissociating from a memory for most people greatly reduces the emotional intensity of that memory. Likewise, associating yourself into a memory greatly intensifies the “feeling” that you receive from the memory.

So, to summarize:

When you recall a memory and you do not see yourself in that memory, you are associated in that memory, experiencing that memory as if there and this for most people greatly increases the feelings that they experience from that memory.
On-the-other-hand, when you recall a memory and you see yourself in that memory, you are dissociated from the memory as you are seeing yourself from the present and that allows you to be more objective about what happened. Thus, to see yourself in the memory will, for most people, decrease the intensity of the feelings from that memory.

As an example, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) happens when the soldier is triggered back to the frightful experience on the battlefield. He mentally goes back there and associates into that memory. He is telling his body that that event is happening all over again. There is no wonder that he experiences so many emotions. However, when the soldier dissociates from the memory and by doing so he sees himself on the battlefield from his present position of being safe at home, the intensity of that memory will be dramatically reduced.

Two Re-imprinting Therapeutic ³Interventions used with Hazel – “Re-imprinting” is a common term used in NLP and in other areas of psychology. An imprint is the modeling by the child of the behavior of the parents or other significant care-giver. Usually, the term refers especially to learning experiences where the child builds his or her identity. You learn how to identify yourself by the feedback from these experiences with parents and others. Regrettably, this works for both bad memories and happy memories.

Children learn by imitating others – by modeling them. New born infants can be seen making facial expressions of those around him. This can happen within hours of birth. Imprinting all happens unconsciously because the child cannot sort the good from the bad. The child experiences parental responses mainly at first through the tonality, the volume and the facial expressions of the parent and how tender or not by the parent. For the first several years of a child’s life, the non-verbal feedback from the parent has a much bigger effect on the child rather than the content of what is said.

Regrettably, a lot of children experience a lot of pain, rejection and even beatings before they are 2 or 3 years old from their parents or caregivers These experiences are deeply imprinted within the child’s brain and they are oft a challenge to fix; or, as we say, to re-imprint those old painful memories with new and more positive imprinting. Richard Bandler once said that “it is never too late to have a happy childhood”. That statement gets to the heart of what NLP and Neuro-Semantics (NS) are all about. I have yet to meet a PWS that didn’t have deeply embedded negative imprints that contribute to triggering their stuttering habit.

We will share two simple methods of re-imprinting.

I used two different interventions with Hazel, to further assist her in healing the memory from her as a teenager. The first intervention consists of Hazel’s being with God and seeing herself with the problem but seeing herself from God’s perspective. From this perspective, Hazel watches herself grow up. This first intervention involves Hazel’s being dissociated from herself on earth. She sees herself from God’s perspective.

The second intervention utilizes Hazel’s being associated here on earth. However, she utilizes her oneness with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as her number one resource in healing hurtful memories. In beginning the re-imprinting Pattern, Hazel places herself back before she was born when she existed with God (See Jeremiah 1:5 below). And, remaining with God, Hazel travels through her life with God bringing healing to those memories from the past. This is one of the best re-imprinting Patterns that I use with Christians.

Hazel continues from earlier, “I shared these ‘conversations’ in a couple of e-mails to you (Bob), in mid-December. The outcome of these conversations was that ‘teenage me’ now feels ‘good about herself’ as a person. What I’m saying is that, a lot of the hurt/pain/feelings of rejection coming from me as a teenager had already been dealt with/healed by Jesus, before I ran the Growing Up Pattern. But not quite all of it, as Jesus still had things to say to me, as I ran that Pattern.”

From our work, Hazel has a real experiential knowledge of Neuro-Linguistic Programming’s (NLP) focus on the Representational System, i.e. the Rep System (pictures, sounds, feeling, smells and taste).

Hazel thus understood how all humans use this system in the making of internal movies. I wrote up a procedure for her to experiment with. It comes from a re-imprinting Pattern that Michael Hall and I created several years ago called “Why Don’t You Just >Insert> Jesus?”

“www.renewingyourmind.com/Techniques/Insert_A_Resource.htm”.

For some years now I have been teaching clients how to do this and they have found it helpful. In this process I have altered somewhat the original Pattern spoken about above. Instead of beginning the procedure at the point of pain, I instructed Hazel to imagine herself back to before she was conceived. I pointed out to her what God said to the Prophet Jeremiah when He called him. In Jeremiah 1:5 (NIV) we read these words of God to him:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

When the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Church at Ephesus (Ephesians 1:4, NIV), he spoke of the very same dynamic that Jeremiah speaks about in his call; and, that is, that we indeed were with God before we were conceived.

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”

Growing Up from God’s Perspective

Healing through Dissociation

Here the Scriptures state that somehow, in the mysteries of God, we existed with God before we were conceived. Think of a problem or issue that you are now facing. Take notice of how you feel when you think of this problem or issue. Now, imagine yourself with God before you were conceived. In other words, you have dissociated yourself from here on earth and mentally you have moved up to be with God.

Now, from the viewpoint of being with God, see yourself down here. And, from that advantage point, out in front of you, see your mother as she carries you in her womb. See your mom as she gives birth to you; see yourself as an infant growing bigger and stronger until you are one year old. And, see “you” who is one year old become two years old and then three years old and continue watching yourself grow up through each subsequent year, all the way to the present.

During this time of watching yourself grow up, you remain with God. Now, do you remember that problem or issue that you had? See yourself out there in front of you having this problem. If you can remember the cause of the problem, see yourself out in front of you during the installation of that problem. If not, being with God, just see yourself having the problem.

Remaining there with God and seeing the “you” out in front of you and seeing that troubled you from God’s perspective, what happens to that problem? That issue? How do you feel about the problem(s) and/or issues while you are being with God practicing the Presence of Jesus?

For most people, any hurt and pain from those memories will be gone or at least diminished. If they are not gone, visualize yourself giving them to God and following His instructions as you give Him that pain and hurt. If it still isn’t working, keep practicing for in all likelihood it will go away. This is true because what happens to emotional hurt and pain in the Presence of God?

Healing through Association

The second intervention that I used with Hazel utilizes our abilities as humans to imagine ourselves going back in time and re-living an experience as if there. Based on how much meaning and how much intensity we place on a past experience, we will naturally re-experience it as either dissociated or associated.

When a soldier experiences nearly being killed in a firefight, that soldier will more than likely automatically recall that memory associated. He does this because of the emotional intensity of the experience. We know that the higher the emotional level when experiencing the trauma, the deeper the emotional pain. If, on-the-other-hand, he has come to terms with the experience and it carries very little or no emotion when he recalls it, in all likelihood, he will recall that memory dissociated – he will see himself in the firefight but he experiences it from being his proper age and from being safe back home.

These two neurological realities are extremely important to most people. Do yourself a favor and experiment with this new knowledge about how we perceive the past, the present, and the future. Understanding the difference between association and dissociation and being able to switch between these two mental states, could very well mean the difference between suffering greatly from something in your past; or, being able to let the hurt from your past go by giving those painful memories to Jesus. This will free up your life enabling you to enjoy Jesus in the present. I love what our Lord tells the disciples in John 10:10b (NIV): “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Healing those hurts from the past will enable you to both understand and experience what Jesus has promised you – an “abundant life…”

The past is not real today – it only has the meaning that you give it in the present. Something that happened 30, 40, or even 50 years ago is not real today. You are living today as if you have never grown up enough to just learn from the past and let the hurt go. Give that painful childhood memory a new meaning. This is called re-framing. Put a frame around those old painful past memories that will serve you today. ²Give that little “you” in that memory to Jesus. This is what Hazel did.

Isn’t it time to let go of that hurt? You may need to forgive someone who hurt you. And, you can do it. You can do it by seeing that old, probably childhood memory way back in your past. See yourself at the age you were when this painful trauma happened. These strategies that Hazel used can work for you as well and this perceptual tool could very well provide you a sense of being free with the Lord Jesus as you have never experienced before. You will be able to enjoy Jesus in the fullness of His forgiveness as well as enjoying the presence of the Holy Spirit continually. There are no more “Bitter Roots” to hold you back. You are His child. He wants you to enjoy being His child.

In the context of stuttering, a hard speech block is psychologically a panic attack experienced from a lot of pain from the past. This indicates that a lot of painful memories are recalled associated. Through years of living on an emotional roller coaster as a person who stutters (PWS), the PWS creates a very deep and powerful emotional connection with their stuttering.

Growing up being made fun of because you stutter; growing up trying to please a perfectionistic parent; growing up being ridiculed by a school teacher; growing up being a loner because of the difficulty that you have as a PWS who has great difficulty speaking; growing up being rejected by employer after employer, over and over because you stutter; when your blocking and stuttering speech strategy is triggered because you are in a context where you feel threatened, in all likelihood and unconsciously, you will recall those painful memories associated. And, because you recall them associated, this means that the intensity of the experience will be greater. Yes, indeed, it triggers a Panic Attack called a speech block.

Another point, since as humans, when we recall a past painful experience associated, our brains are telling our bodies that we are the age of the memory that we are recalling. And, when many painful memories are triggered, as in the case of blocking, we mentally respond out of the earliest memory of pain. If you are a PWS, ask yourself, “how old do I feel when I am blocking and stuttering?” You may be surprised at the answer.

We now turn to Hazel’s learning how to “let go” of those hurts, that for her, rooted both in her childhood and her teen years. This entire article draws from her experiencing the Lord Jesus in all of His love and forgiveness for that hurting child and teenager of her past.

The following is Hazel’s description of her experiencing “Growing Up Her Inner Child”:

“A while ago, you asked me to let you know how the ‘growing up a part’ goes. Well, I was finally able to do it over this weekend.

I imagined myself (associated) with Jesus, before conception. Then, in my mother’s womb (that was weird!), I grew up month by month but when I reached 4 months, I sensed fear coming from my mum. I remember her telling me years ago, that she had some organs in the wrong place in her body and because of this, there was more concern than usual over the pregnancy/birth. In the womb Jesus said to me: ‘Simply acknowledge your mum’s fear, but you don’t need to absorb it. You are safe with me. I will protect you. I am greater than your mum’s fear. My love will protect you.’

I had a sense of well-being again, so continued on to 5,6,7,8 months, then came the time for me to be born. I felt anxious – so did my mum. I felt scared, but Jesus said to me: ‘I will be with you. I will help you. I will help your mum.’ As it turned out, I was born by Caesarean and the whole procedure was filmed for medical reasons (I was an unusual birth!) Yep, I was born a film star J

After I’d been ‘pulled out’, I felt abandoned by my mum as she was asleep and I was carried off away from her. But Jesus said: ‘Even though she’s not with you, I am with you – I will look after you.’ So I was aware of Jesus’ love surrounding me.

I continued growing month by month until I was 1 year old, then year after year, without interruption, until I reached age 13. Then life started feeling like a rocky, bumpy ride and I was feeling insecure. I imagined myself at school, sat next to Jesus on one of the chairs there. He said to me: ‘This is going to be a difficult time in your life, but I will help you through it.’ I thanked Jesus for being with me even before I was born, and for helping me through this coming stage in my life. I imagined Jesus carrying me through my years from ages 13-16. When I was 16, He put me down and we held hands, continuing on along my time-line.

When I reached age 20, that was when my mum died suddenly. He picked me up again and carried me through the couple of years following that event. I was really holding onto Him tightly during that time! Then aged 23-25 he put me down and we held hands again. Aged 26-35 I had a feeling of heaviness and frustration, weighed down by my speech problems and a sense of ‘will it ever end?’ It felt like I was wading through deep water. Every day was a struggle but Jesus continued to be with me in the deep water, still holding my hand. At age 35 (when I first joined the McGuire Programme for people who stutter), I came out of the deep water and onto drier ground but the path was still rocky. Jesus continued to hold my hand. At age 48, I was again going through deep water (last year, 2014). Then we moved onto drier ground again and came to the present time. I paused for a moment, then continued on into the future, until my body died and I went to be with Jesus.

As you suggested, I repeated the above about 4 or 5 times in total, getting faster each time. The last couple of times, I wasn’t aware of all that detail, but was simply ‘growing up’, knowing that Jesus was with me continually year after year.

I’m not sure how I’m meant to feel after doing all that. At the moment it seems as if the young child part and the teenage part have kind of been merged into the adult me. I’m guessing that’s what’s supposed to happen? And I’m more aware than before, that Jesus has always been with me, even before I was conceived, and will continue to be with me throughout the rest of my life on earth, and beyond.

It was an interesting experience!”

The Pattern:

First, I sent her a simple Pattern for Growing Up the Inner Child being dissociated from down here and being “up there” with God. This is the Pattern we covered earlier, under the heading ‘Healing through Dissociation’. Following that, I wrote out a more detailed associated Pattern that involves her utilizing her faith in Jesus as a mighty resource to bring healing to her inner hurting child, to her teenager and to her adult.

Imagine yourself with God before you were conceived. God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you and I called you as a prophet unto the nations.”
Now, maintaining that sense of being with God, imagine yourself in your mother’s womb at 1 month old.
Next, being in the womb with God at 1 month old, come forward with God being 2 months old.
Continue doing this until you reach the 9^th month (or, at whatever month you were borne). You are in the womb and the Lord is in there with you.
Suddenly, you get a sense that you don’t belong in there any longer, you are ready to be introduced to the world and you with the Lord come through the birth canal and you start breathing and crying really loud. Jesus is right there with you.
Now, continuing on with Jesus with you, become 1 month old, 2 months old, 3 months old, all the way forward with the Lord until you are one year old.
Next, come forward in increments of one year with Jesus with you, become 2 years old, 3 years old, etc. reliving each year but with Jesus with you.
When you reach the age of you as the teenager we just worked on, you may need to pause there and let the Lord do some healing with that teenage Hazel.
Once she is healed, continue coming forward year after year with the Lord until you reach the present time.
Pause here at the present moment with the Lord and then imagine yourself growing on up with the Lord going out into your future with the Lord as far out as you would like to go.

Watch for this – as you come forward with the Lord through your younger years, you may come to a time where you get the sense that you need to spend some time there, allowing the Lord to do some healing during that moment in your history. Remain there until the Lord gives you the go ahead to continue on up each subsequent age.

After you successfully complete this, go back to before you were conceived; when you were with God before conception. Then repeat the above but a little faster. Repeat it 3 to 5 or more times, each time doing it faster and faster. Now, as you recall that teenager, how is she feeling?

How did I utilize this procedure with Hazel? Very simply, rather than leading Hazel from the point of the pain which in her case was when she was a teenager, I asked her to imagine herself before she was conceived, with Jesus. And, being with Jesus, she maintained the presence of Jesus with her as she imagined entering her mother’s womb and becoming that one month old fetus but this time she knew Jesus was there.

Thanks for reading this article and feel free to contact us about any questions or comments that you may have:

Endnotes:

¹By “Part” I am referring to the neurology, physiology and the behavior that produces some unwanted consequences (See Luke 11:39). Indeed, based on the intensity of the “part”, it can have a life of its own. Some of these parts behave as if they are a totally different personality due to the person’s inability to control them. Indeed, when the part is created through a lot of sexual abuse, Multiple Personalities are the result. It is believed that in Multiple Personalities, the neurology of each personality is not neurologically connected to the rest of the brain.

²You will find the “How to take a Hurt (Bitter Root) to Jesus” on our website at:
www.renewingyourmind.com/Techniques/BitterRoot.htm.

³Therapeutic Interventions are about the therapist taking actions to better the patients’ health and well-being. Interventions are things that the therapist does in leading the client to make positive changes to their negative thoughts-behavior. Newberg and Waldman in their book How God changes your brain states:

“Gus’s scans (brain scans) showed that it takes less than two months to alter the overall neural functioning of the brain. This is amazing because it demonstrates that we have the power to consciously change our brains, and improve our neural functioning, in far less time than scientists used to think. As noted in Chapter 1, we can see permanent changes in single neurons in a matter of days, and as other studies have shown, most forms of meditation (A “Therapeutic Intervention”) will create subtle but significant changes in a couple of months.”

The evidence is overwhelming that the brain creates new neural networks as it learns new things. And this “learning new things” is what the therapist seeks to lead the client to do. NLP and Neuro-Semantics offer many tools for the therapist to use in teaching clients how to “learn new things”. We seek to “intervene” in their present thinking, to challenge them to think in far healthier ways than they have been thinking. The dis-ease “part” is either deleted from lack of use or the neurons are taken over by the positive meanings applied to the negative thought.

A point to keep in mind is that the brain processes imaginative thoughts as reality. Proverbs 23:7a (KJV) states, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…” This ancient Jewish Proverb goes straight to the heart of Cognitive Psychology in that man’s reality is determined by his thinking. Therapeutic Interventions are so designed to lead the client in changing unhelpful thinking to the kind of thinking that is congruent with his higher beliefs. For the Christian, it is the aligning of our thoughts about ourselves with God’s thoughts about ourselves.

Authors

Hazel Percy –
Bob Bodenhamer –

March 2015

“How Did the Light Turn Green?” My Journey Towards Overcoming Stuttering

January 29, 2011 by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

My Journey Towards Overcoming Stuttering

By Hazel Percy

The question “how did the traffic light turn green?” could well be the first line of a joke! However, I find the traffic light a very apt metaphor to use when relating my journey towards overcoming stuttering. My hope is that, as I tell my story, other people who stutter (PWS) will in some way find help and encouragement through what I share.

Red

I am 40 years old, married, live in the UK and have blocked and stuttered since early childhood. Although mild to begin with, the problem grew in severity during my teenage years. From that time on, I increasingly felt stuck on ‘red’ in many areas of my life, unable to move forward because of my fears around speaking. As I stuttered in every speaking situation I was in (except when on my own, although that wasn’t always a totally block-free zone), I felt very restricted when considering my life choices. For example, my choice of jobs was based not on my abilities or interests, but on how much speaking would be involved. I chose the easy route of avoidance and consequently remained in jobs I often found boring, unfulfilling and ‘not really me’. Whilst at work I would sometimes avoid making business phone calls and when I did pluck up the courage to do so, I found it embarrassing, humiliating and a considerable physical struggle to speak.

Social situations were difficult too, even in the comfort zone of my own home with close family and friends. Many a time I would stay quiet when I had something to say, because I knew that as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, the physical struggle would begin, leaving me feeling emotionally and physically drained. If I saw our next door neighbours out in their garden, I would often avoid speaking to them. Either I would wait until they had gone back in, before going outside myself; or I might pretend that I hadn’t seen them, or that I was just too busy to speak. What must they have thought! It wasn’t that I wanted to be unfriendly; I just felt too embarrassed and scared to speak and stutter in front of them.

Soon after our first daughter was born, in June 1999, I clearly remember saying to my husband that he would have to read all the bedtime stories. There was no way I could envisage myself being able to do it. All in all, because of my stuttering, I saw myself as being ‘less than’ other people and inadequate as a person. As a result of this, I would always push myself harder than necessary in other ways, to try to compensate for my lack of speaking ability.

Being an overt and relatively severe PWS did however have its advantages. It mean’t that only on the odd occasion would I substitute a ‘difficult’ word for an ‘easier’ one. To me, all words could be difficult to say, so most of the time I saw no point in trying to change them! The only exception to that being our wedding day, when the fear of stuttering in front of so many people was so high. On that occasion, the marriage ceremony was re-worded in such a way that all I had to say on my own was ‘I do’, then repeat some words in unison with my husband to be, which of course I had no difficulty in doing.

Being this way in the world gave me great motivation to try and change the way things were. In my teens I had several sessions of traditional speech therapy, but these proved to be unhelpful. Also, in my twenties I attended several courses in the UK run by someone who had overcome his own stuttering problem. Although this was of some help, in that it allowed me to converse more easily with close family and friends, the speaking method I was taught was so abnormally slow that it was often impractical and difficult to use in real life outside situations. Over time, I gradually let go of it and returned to my old ways.

However, in September 2000 when I was 34 years old, my life took a dramatic turn. I heard about the McGuire Programme; a programme that addresses both physical and psychological aspects of stuttering, and felt that I should give it a go. After all, I had absolutely nothing to lose. It was during my first course that I believe I changed from ‘Red to ‘Amber’.

Amber

For me, the ‘Amber’ stage lasted nearly 5 years and was a time of change in many ways. It was also a time of preparation, to enable me to change further and move on to ‘Green,’ or ‘Go’; but more about that later. Joining the McGuire Programme gave me the first taster I had had in years, of what life could be like without blocking and stuttering. During the four day course I heard myself speaking with a freedom I had only dream’t about; not only in the ‘classroom setting’, but out on the streets with the general public and even public speaking in the town square! For the first time since early childhood, I knew that I was physically able to say the exact words I wanted to say whilst in the presence of another person; and that was a strange and wonderful experience for me! From that point on, I knew my life would never be the same again; and it wasn’t.

On returning home, I found that I was able to maintain my newly found freedom in a fair number of speaking situations. However, at the same time I found it physically and mentally tiring to do so, and sometimes I would look at other ‘normal fluent speakers’ and wonder; “why do I have to use all this physical effort to speak, when others can speak so easily?” Furthermore, despite my best efforts, I sometimes found it hard to maintain my newly learn’t technique in certain situations; and I didn’t understand why!

At the time, I believed that stuttering was caused by some sort of physical brain malfunction, and that controlling the physical behaviour was the only way forward. Also I was pretty much oblivious to any thoughts I had prior to blocking. Over the years, they had grown outside my conscious awareness. Furthermore, although I always felt anxious and tense before and during blocking/stuttering, I in no way equated these as being contributory factors to the cause of the behaviour. However, my eyes were soon to be well and truly opened when in 2003, I read John Harrison’s book ‘How to Conquer Your Fears of Speaking Before People’.

For me, John’s book answered a lot of questions about the nature of blocking and stuttering; and for the first time in my life, I changed the belief that my speech problem was being caused by some incurable brain disorder. Instead, I came to believe that it was a self-supporting system (‘stuttering hexagon’) which I had created and sustained over many years. John’s story of his own recovery and his unique insight into the problem, brought real hope to me that one day I could be completely free too!

Having been very inspired by John’s book, it also threw a spanner in the works for me. Knowing what I now knew, what course of action should I now take? Should I change direction in my recovery? After all, I was going along the road of controlling the blocking symptoms, but what if that wasn’t the right way forward for me? And so began several months of inner conflict and turmoil as, with John’s support and help, I began to think this issue through. Although I remained loosely connected to the McGuire Programme, I was very unsure of the right path to take. Things came to a head in June 2004, whilst having a meal in a large room of 100 people or more. Everyone seemed to be chatting away and having a good time; all except me. There was I, sat at the table, feeling frustrated and trapped; so afraid to be seen openly stuttering in front of people. Something had to change – and soon!

Around that time I started looking on the internet, to see what else was ‘out there’ to help PWS and came across the Neuro-Semantic’s web-site (Neuro-Semantics for PWS). I started reading the articles there about blocking/stuttering and was soon addicted to reading everything I could on the subject! What I read made so much sense to me and furthered my understanding of blocking.

Tim Mackesey’s testimony particularly caught my attention and during the summer of 2004, I arranged to have several telephone consultations with him. It was during these that I first started applying Neuro-Semantic/NLP patterns to my speech problem. Tim led me through various patterns including the Drop Down Through and the Meta Yes/Meta No. However, what I found most helpful at that time was Time-Line Re-imprinting. Using this pattern I spent considerable time alone at home, reframing past hurtful memories of blocking. I also gave any hurt I still felt in relation to these, to my highest spiritual resource, and forgave the other people involved for any hurt they had inadvertently caused me. Of course I also needed to forgive myself; for I realised that more often than not, through my ‘mind-reading’, I had judged my listener far too harshly!

As a consequence of doing this, and with Tim’s help, I gradually began to change my perceptions of other people and in particular, of their reactions if I stuttered. Also I decided to do an experiment. Over several weeks, I telephoned numerous shops and businesses; making general and fairly short enquiries, whilst deliberately allowing myself to openly stutter. The aim was to observe how my listeners reacted to my non-fluency. I have to admit that I was amazed at the result! Nine times out of ten, there was no reaction whatsoever. People listened and appeared to be more interested in what I had to say, rather than how I was saying it! The only reaction I did notice was the occasional ‘‘pardon’’, if they hadn’t quite caught what I’d said. Similarly, I made several enquiries in local shops. I always maintained eye contact throughout, smiled, looked as confident as I could, and said what I wanted to say. Again I allowed myself to openly stutter, and again people seemed to respect me and listened to what I had to say.

Also around this time, I enrolled on a public speaking course at my local college, which consisted of 30 evening classes held over a year. My aim was to further desensitise myself to stuttering in front of a group of people. As the course progressed, I discovered from the feedback I received, that I could come across as confident, relaxed and sound interesting, even though I stuttered. My prior judgement of other people’s reactions to my stuttering had been totally wrong, and as a result, my perceptions changed. Other people were simply other people, just like me, no doubt with their own worries and problems. Of course, I know there is a minority of people in this world who aren’t so patient and understanding when faced with PWS (maybe through their own lack of knowledge about stuttering), but how they react is totally their responsibility.

When the sessions with Tim ended, I was again faced with the dilemma of what to do next. I was still very much interested in Neuro-Semantics but was also very aware that I needed to uncover the negative thoughts, beliefs, perceptions and emotions that were underlying my blocking. For at that time, I had very little idea what they were. In due course I contacted John Harrison again, and via e-mail he helped to steer my thinking in such a way that I began to get a glimpse of what was really going on under the surface. John also suggested that I join the ‘neurosemanticsofstuttering’ e-mail list. So in December 2004 I subscribed; and wasn’t that the right decision!

And so began six months of very deep thinking! I had so many questions to ask, and found that the answers I got from various people on the list were really insightful, helpful and very thought provoking. Then came the night of January 8^th 2005! Lying in bed, it was as if the floodgates of my mind suddenly opened! It felt as if a torrent of buried negative beliefs and perceptions about myself came rushing to the surface all at once. Among other things, it became clear that I was always craving for other people’s approval of me (a sign of low self-esteem). Also, I feared social rejection and felt inadequate as a person because I stuttered. This process continued on and off throughout the night. Of course I had to write it all down, so by the morning I felt a bit of a wreck! I also felt quite overwhelmed by it all. Here in front of me, was a huge mountain of negative ‘stuff’ relating to myself and my blocking that needed to be dealt with. For a few moments I thought I was going to ‘lose it!’ But I managed to keep my sanity (I think J). I realised that I needed to work through all of this with a therapist, and because Bob Bodenhamer and myself share the same Christian faith, I felt that I should approach him.

In due course I had several telephone consultations with Bob, over a period of five months. I realised that I had intertwined my identity as a person with my blocking and stuttering behaviour, and they needed separating. During the sessions, Bob would often have me associate into a memory relating to blocking (sometimes from childhood), then lead me through the Drop Down Through Pattern. I was utterly amazed at the negative thoughts, feelings and identity statements that came to mind, as I dropped down through each layer. Some I didn’t even believe, until Bob explained that they were coming from the child part of me. Then I applied my highest spiritual resource to each of the negative thoughts, feelings and identity statements. As I did so, the latter disappeared and were replaced with positive and more powerful ones. I continued this process at home also, working through other memories as and when they came to mind. In this way, my identity as a person gradually became separated from my blocking behaviour. As a result of this, I realised that I was a person of worth no matter how I talked, and that I no longer needed other people’s approval of me.

Following on from the sessions with Bob, I continued to spend more time mentally in the presence of my highest resource. As I did so, this new perception of myself was reinforced, and my self-esteem increased further. But then I reached a point yet again when I wasn’t sure what the next stage was. I now felt OK as a person and had positive beliefs about myself, even though I stuttered. But I was still stuttering on most words, although by this stage, the blocks were short and with very little tension. Perhaps being a bit of a sceptic, I wasn’t convinced that the blocking behaviour would naturally fade away that easily! I also began to miss hearing myself speaking relatively fluently at least some of the time. So I decided to become more committed to the McGuire Programme again; a decision that I know was the right one for me. Gradually, with the help of friends on the programme, I started to regain more fluency but I still felt there was something missing.

In September 2005, I attended Bob’s ‘Mastering Blocking and Stuttering Workshop’ in London. It was excellent and as I listened to the teaching and took part in the group work, I realised that I had indeed changed on the inside. It confirmed the fact that I had quite radically changed the beliefs about myself over recent months, and that my identity as a person was definitely no longer related to how I spoke.

I also found being led through the Power Zone Pattern really helpful. It reinforced in my mind, the fact that I and I alone have control over what I think and feel, and how I behave and speak. I also realised how important it was to give other people permission to own their powers too, instead of trying to ‘mind-read’ what they may or may not be thinking. Although what other people thought of me was now no longer a key-issue in my life, it was good to be reminded of this.

At the workshop, I had the privilege of meeting John Harrison for the first time. Over the past couple of years or so, he had got to know ‘where I was at’ speech-wise, and as we spoke he made the observation that I was holding myself back, particularly in relation to my volume. Having had years of stuttering, I had grown accustomed to speaking in a fairly quiet voice (or not speaking at all!). I usually didn’t want to be noticed or stand out in a crowd, especially when I spoke. However, I didn’t think this had much significance. To me it sounded natural to speak that way because I had always done it. But I trusted John’s insight and so, at the end of one of the day’s sessions, I allowed him to lead me through a volume experiment, in front of a few of the other participants. This involved doubling my volume several times and then observing my, and other people’s perception of how I was coming across.

I found that experiment immensely valuable. I realised that my perception of how I sounded when I spoke was considerably different from other people’s. I thought I was coming on too strong and too loud but they thought I just sounded more confident and more alive when I spoke. I decided that after the course ended, I would start using a ‘bigger’ voice in the outside world and see what effect that would have. I also realised that I needed to practise putting more expression into my voice. Again, having stuttered for so many years, I had never developed this ‘skill’. My only concern had been; “how do I get these words out?” As a result, I had grown accustomed to talking in a rather monotone way.

Something else that John said during one of the sessions really struck a chord with me. He emphasised that blocking could also be seen as a form of holding back, of sucking in one’s energy in an attempt to blend into the background and become ‘invisible’. I recognised that this had certainly been true in my case over the years. I had always had reservations about putting the ‘real me’ on show too much, even in non-speaking situations. By this stage too, I had pretty much desensitised myself to blocking and stuttering in front of people. I no longer felt embarrassed, and didn’t particularly fear doing it in front of people; yet the behaviour was still there, and it was an inconvenient way of expressing myself!

Of course the opposite of holding back is letting go, and I realised that by speaking in a louder voice, I would be doing just that. But I now felt ready to take that next step. So as I returned home, I turned up the volume! At first it felt really strange and overly loud to me, but as I kept persevering with it over several weeks, I gradually got more used to it. I also noticed that when I did speak in a louder voice, I felt more confident and actually found it easier to speak. I then started to enjoy speaking in the new way and eventually reached the point of preferring it to the old!

With increased confidence, I decided it was now time to tackle the one and only speaking situation that I was still avoiding. Since joining the McGuire Programme, I had more or less given up the practise of avoiding situations, though sometimes I postponed going into them! However, there was one situation involving speaking in front of a particular small group of people, which I had been intending to go into for months. Yet when the time came, I always ‘chickened out’. I hadn’t been following through my intentions and I knew that this was having a negative effect on my ‘hexagon’. So one evening I took the plunge; and as I did so, it wasn’t half as scary as I’d imagined. In fact I quite enjoyed it and have been frequently entering and speaking in that situation ever since. No more situation avoidance for me! I was pleased with the progress I was making; yet just around the corner there was another surprise in store for me!

Last November, I went on my first McGuire Programme course in nearly five years. Again I realised just how much I’d changed during that time. I now felt much more comfortable speaking with people; not just people on the course, but absolutely anyone! I also took on board two more tools. During the course the instructor, Martin Coombs, emphasised the need to use ‘deliberate dysfluency’; that is, choosing to prolong the first sound of a word or words, or imitating a block, immediately releasing it and saying the word again. The point of this was to advertise ourselves as people recovering from stuttering, but in a dignified and controlled way, without genuinely blocking. As he spoke, I realised that I felt uncomfortable about doing that. It was one thing to not mind stuttering in front of other people, but it was really ‘pushing the boat out’ to put in extra pretend blocks and stutters that wouldn’t normally be there! But I realised the fact that I felt uncomfortable, indicated that I needed to do it!

Secondly, we were shown a way to deepen the tone of our voice whilst saying a word, which I found very helpful. Although I was already aware of these two tools, I had never really put them into practice. With these two extra tools now to hand, I returned home and started putting into practise what I’d learn’t. It was then that I realised that during that course, everything had come together for me. I had turned a corner and had changed from ‘Amber’ to ‘Green’, or ‘Go!’

Green

As I started to use deliberate dysfluency in every speaking situation and became even more open about my stuttering, I discovered just how empowering that was! I was now in the driving seat. I could choose to prolong or not prolong whichever sounds I liked. Or I could imitate a block and release it, without experiencing the real, ‘out of control’ blocking. It was so liberating and fun to do! I was also outwardly demonstrating to people that I was someone who sometimes stutters, but in the way that I chose. I also discovered that I now had an insatiable desire to talk and talk and talk! J

As the days went by, I noticed that there was a consistency in the way I spoke. I went into all sorts of situations and was able to maintain my new way of speaking most of the time. Furthermore, I no longer found it the great physical and mental effort that I had five years ago. This time round it felt a lot more natural and easier to me; I think, because of the internal changes that had taken place in my mind.

I started going along to Toastmasters and on the second occasion, was invited to take part in the table topics session. I jumped at the chance! I got up and spoke in front of 30 or so people I hardly knew, using deliberate dysfluency, and gave a short humorous talk. My speaking was absolutely fine. In fact I was even voted the best table topics speaker of the evening! In December, I read out a poem in front of some 400 people at church. Again, everything went great and I loved every minute of it! And so it has continued.

Sometimes I have the occasional minor ‘hiccup’ here and there, but nothing serious and it in no way affects my everyday life. If I do notice myself starting to hold back for whatever reason, I either reframe the situation while I’m in it, or analyse afterwards what was going on in my mind. I always find that some slight approach/avoidance conflict had been going on. Sometimes it has merely been the fact that as I’ve started to present myself differently in a speaking situation, I’ve been aware of displaying the ‘real Hazel’ like never before; and because that’s a fairly new experience for me, it’s felt uncomfortable. As a result, I’ve sometimes had the slight tendency to try and block out those feelings by holding myself back. However, I realise that I need to allow myself to feel uncomfortable; it is only a feeling! Also, I know that the more I do this, the easier it will get. Whatever the reason for holding back, I learn from the experience and then take whatever action is necessary the next time I’m in a similar situation.

As I look back over the past five years, I realise that at different stages, I’ve been addressing each point of my ‘stuttering hexagon’ and making each one more positive. Neurosemantics in particular has played a key role in helping me to change my beliefs about myself, and my perceptions of other people. At this point, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Bob and Tim for all their help and for all that they do to help PWS. I’d also like to thank John too, whose unique insight has tremendously influenced and helped me, particularly in the area of my perceptions and emotions. And of course all my colleagues and friends on the McGuire Programme, who have helped, supported and inspired me in so many ways.

I’m very aware that this new way of speaking and presenting myself to the world continually needs to be reinforced day by day, so that eventually it becomes habituated and second nature. Which is why I now enjoy pushing out my comfort zone and making the most of every speaking opportunity. For example, whenever I’m in a shop I will usually start chatting with the shop assistant (providing there isn’t a long queue behind me!). If I’m in a queue waiting to pay for something, I will often pass the time of day with the person in front or behind me. And I love chatting with the parents at the school gate, when I pick my children up each day.

How different life is now! Instead of waking up each morning with a sense of heaviness, wondering how I’m going to get through each speaking situation, I now wake up looking forward to enjoying speaking as much as possible. At last, I am able to show other people my true colours!