An interesting visit to Vaishno Devi.....!!!

On 12th of September (saturday) I went to Vaishno Devi with one of my friend. My friend is a non-stammerer. Now for those who dont know about Vaishno Devi, it is a sacred place that is situated on the top of a hill. It is in Jammu and devotees from all over India come here for Mata's darshan (to pay respect). We have to cover the distance of about 14 km on foot to reach the Mata's Bhawan. Usually people cover this distance on foot and some aged people cover this distance on horses. We started our journey from Katra (The base of that hill) at 8 pm in the evening.
For the first 4 kms,both of us(me and my friend) were full of energy and excitement and didn't stop even at one single resting place . But after that, we were tired of walking continuously for 4 kms and it took us about an hour to cover this much distance. It is not that much easy as it looks . we have to go up the hill, so the roads are not perfectly horizontal. As we didn't had our dinner and the time was 9:30 pm ,we were really hungry and with no more energy. So we decided to have our dinner after 11 pm and to buy some chips for the time being.
Then we just kept on walking slowly and steadily. At 11 pm we went to a restaurant and had our dinner. The Bhawan was still 4 kms away from that place. So after having our dinner, we were full of energy once again and covered that distance of 4 kms with in next 1.5 hours. So at around 1 am, we were finally at Mata's Bhawan.There was a huge line of people who were waiting for Mata's darshan. So we also went in and had to wait for about 1 hour, standing in that line. Finally we were at the Mata's holy cave and I prayed for my stammer and also my future.

At 1:35 am we were done with the Darshan and started going back to Katra the same way we came. Now, when coming back downwards for 5 kms from the Bhawan, I asked my friend to sit and take rest some where . So we saw some vacant chairs in front of us and we sat there for about 25 mins. Here I started asking my friend if he had seen an english movie called "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" . He said "No ,I havent seen this one".

I told him that it is a nice movie based on a true story and he must watch this movie. Then I kept silent for sometime. Now during this scilence, I was thinking that whether I should tell him the story of the movie. But at the same time one more thought was coming into my mind and that was, as usual of stammer. I wanted to tell him the story but once again I was getting double minded due to my stammer. I thought that if I started to tell him the story ,whether I will be able to speak without stammer or not. Now this was also one of my fears to talk to a non-stammerer about the thing that I did in my past: Because I can speak fluently when I say the things that we speak normally at home or with friends and family. But when it comes to talk about something that has happened in the past, then I was having no second option but to just stop saying what I was trying to say.But this time I was knowing that it is the right situation to face my fears and time to test my speech techniques . So I chose to tell him the story. I started very gently and told him about Emily Rose and what was the main concept in this movie. Though I didnt use bouncing ,but I did use Prolongation, pausing and most of all deep breathing.Honestly speaking, Deep breathing was the important thing that was keeping my speech fluent.

After telling him this much, we stared walking again but there was still some part of the movie in my mind that I wanted to tell him. So once again I started speaking out and told him all the things that I wanted to say, but using a slow rate of speech and ofcourse Deep Breathing. And I was very fluent while telling him the story. Although he was observing and must be asking to himself that "Why is he Doing this Deep breathing again and again..?" , but I was not worried about what he thinks about me . I was just using my techniques and practicing those techniques in a real life situation. Thatz it .
At that time I felt that now I am able to deal with my Emotions and Fears. So instead of running away from it , we must go ahead and try to face it .
On the way back to home, he asked me "why did you went to Dehradun(samagra ashram)...??".
And I told him the truth about my stammering and about my speech therapy at Dehradun. But still he was not clear what I was talking about.

And after facing your fears you will feel that you have really eliminated or erased this fear from your mind.We reached the Bus stand at the base (Katra) at 5 am in the morning.And from there we took the bus to Jammu. And we were home at 7 am. And as we were very tired, we just removed our shoes and went to sleep .

Happy ending.........!!!