I remember Erik showed signs of empathy at a very young age. When he was about 15 months old, my sister came over to visit from California, bringing Erik’s brand new cousin, Fiona, with her. When Teri put her on the carpet to change her diaper, Erik watched with fascination. But the moment the diaper was off, he said, “Oh no!” He was so upset that she was missing what he thought should be a vital part of the human anatomy and felt quite sorry for her.

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Enjoy the last part of our stuttering series!

Me: Well, why did you stutter, Erik? Was it something from a past life?

Erik (placing his hand on his chest): It wasn’t from a past life. For me, it was more of a fear of being misunderstood or not taken seriously.

Little guy in a busy, chaotic family with a bunch of kids? That’s it.

Erik: A lot of people deal with this, too. They want to be understood and feel valid in that. They want whatever they’re expressing is validated by the person they’re expressing it to.

Kim: This is interesting. He’s referring to a family friend of ours, a grown man, who stutters terribly.

Erik: For him, it’s a fear of being misunderstood and wanting to be understood in a certain way.

Me: So you want to get it right. You want the words to come out right, so there’s a lot of pressure.

Erik: Exactly, and that’s when you see that it’s almost OCD about it coming out right or expressed correctly.

Me: Right.

Erik: A lot of times, it’s not conscious.

Kim: He’s showing having no control over it when they restart that phrase or sentence ten times. It’s about feeling aligned with what they’re going to say or what they’re expressing.

Me: Okay.

Erik: When they wait for that alignment to occur, that’s when you see the stutter. There are a lot of dynamics that come in.

Me: Do you want to talk about ways to approach it, or do you still wanna talk about the pattern?

Kim (smiling): Yeah, it’s so funny because he goes, “You wanna change it? Okay, here’s how!” He’s so mater-of-fact about everything.

Me: I guess past life regression can help in some cases when it is related to a past life, right?

Erik: There are a lot of things you can do if you stutter or have speech issues.

Kim listens for a while.

Kim: Oh, man, this is interesting. He’s even going into expressive aphasia.

Me: Where you can’t find the words to say.

Erik: Stuttering is a form of expressive aphasia.

Kim: Interesting! I never thought about that.

Me: Well, that’s kind of true! Yeah.

Erik: With stuttering, to help realign yourself for self-expression, because that’s the root of the issue, first you must find out the cause. Past life regression would be necessary in some cases, but what would be more effective to start is—

Kim: He’s showing me a counseling set up where someone is counseled on their self-worth. It almost feels like an interview.

Me: So cognitive therapy. Talk therapy.

Kim: Yeah.

Erik: Right. Talk therapy that talks about self-confidence and self-worth. That’s just a piece of the puzzle. Okay, you got that piece? Keep it there.

Kim laughs.

Erik: Then in the talk therapy, you need to talk about the power of being present with what you’re trying to express.

Me: That’s hard!

Erik: When you’re not aligned with it, that’s when you have a hard time and can’t express it.

Me: How do you do that? Breathing techniques to keep you in the Now?

Erik: Right, going through different phases of progressive therapy to de-clutter the mind. People that stutter often have a cluttered mind and a lot of thought debris. So they have to pray, meditate, cleanse, whatever they need to to clear those thoughts so they can align with self-expression. Mom, oftentimes, people that stutter, it’s like their mind is racing. There’s so much energy up in the head. It’s almost like ADHD, like they can’t focus.

Me: Yeah, I can see that.

Erik: What do we call that? Ta-da! A lack of presence! If you’re in the Here and Now, you have no trouble with focus, and that’s what these people need. They need to re-center their awareness into the Now.

Kim: He’s showing me guided meditation like attunement through sound therapy.

Me: Okay.

Kim: Like he’s actually showing me a monk cracking a singing bowl, like a Tibetan bowl. He’s really excited about this for some reason. He’s jumping up and down!

Erik: People that stutter would benefit by it. People like me who have a hard time focusing can just be asked to sit down and focus on the sound. That’s all. Just listen to it. Focus on what you’re hearing. That’s why it’s so easy. That’s why it’s effective. It’s easy for people to focus on sound. In doing that, they’re becoming present and they’re learning how to disconnect and not be bombarded by all of their thoughts. When you’re present, you have a stronger ability to express yourself.

Me: And you can get those Tibetan singing bowl chants or whatever on iTunes or YouTube. Are there any substances that would help like CBD oil or aromatherapy? Any other kind of therapy that would help?

Kim: Okay, so real quick, if you guys go to omimports.com, that’s a great website for really inexpensive Tibetan bowls and things like that.

Me: Okay!

Erik: Any tool—if someone were to buy their own bowl and listen to it or burn incense or oils, focusing on those is bringing you into the Now. The same thing with journaling. When you focus on that, you become present. It aligns your energy.

Kim (chuckling): He gets mad at me. I have the habit of saying, ‘It kind of’ or ‘it sort of.’ It just comes out like that.

Erik: Not “kind of.” It does!

Me: Ah, so funny! Is there anything a person can do as they’re talking to keep from stuttering? They can’t take their singing bowl into a business meeting and all that kind of stuff!

Erik: Wouldn’t that be cool if they could?

Me: Yeah!

Erik: If someone has trouble stuttering, as they’re talking, they can just slow down. Most of the time, the reason they can’t get it to come out right the first time or smoothly the first time is because they’re already thinking about something else or the next thing they’re going to say or it’s like they’re processing 10 other thoughts at the same time while they’re trying to say this thought over here. So slow down and align emotionally with what you’re trying to express.

Me: Ah, okay.

Erik: That will help, but it takes practice. It takes practice and awareness, but don’t overthink it. As soon as you do, you’ll fuck it up!

Kim laughs.

Me: That’s true! I bet one of the biggest components to speech therapy is that you’re being asked to focus on a task, so you’re being asked to be in the Now. Speech therapy did help you. Anything else on stuttering before we close?

Kim: He’s offering compassion.

Erik: Those of you with stuttering, speech impediments like pronunciation issues, of course work on self-expression like the throat chakra, emotional connection to what you’re saying, but don’t let your self-worth go down the drain because you have a hard time expressing what you need to.

Me: Yeah, work on the throat chakra. That’s right. You can listen to sounds that clear the throat chakra or you can wear blue: a blue tie, a blue shirt, sleep in blue sheets, things like that. That would probably help.

Erik: It’s easy, Mom. It just takes repetition over and over, and then you just align with the emotions behind what you’re trying to say, what you’re trying to express.

Me: Yeah, if you emotionally align yourself with what you’re trying to express, it seems like that would bring you into the Now moment.

Erik: Anyway, people with stuttering problems harbor or embody a lot of energy so they’re always like excited or their attention is all over the place. So, they need to ground. The way you truly, properly ground yourself is by being present, by being mindful in the moment and observing yourself. That’s how you ground yourself. If they could just get rid of half of that energy, they wouldn’t have stuttering problems.

Me: Yeah.

Erik: There’s so much energy built up, and that’s what charges the stutter.

Me: And there are also grounding meditations that you can get online like iTunes, etc. You can look up grounding techniques. Sometimes just walking barefoot in the grass, hugging a tree, connecting to the core of the Earth—there are all sorts of ways to ground yourself. You guys can Google it. Anything else?

Erik: Just that I love you!

Me: I love you, too!

Kim: He’s blowing you kisses.

We close in our usual way.

Check out the latest episode of Erik’s Hour of Enlightenment here: http://liveparanormal.com/page/erik

And check out this YouTube where we channeled Emma’s Higher Self!