In Full Voice: Shedding the Labels that Silenced Me

By Fiona Havlish

Fiona Havlish is an engaging inspirational speaker and success coach whose stories entertain and inspire those going through drastic life transitions. You would never guess that she stuttered as a child and spent the better part of her life trying to remain invisible while navigating her own journey in silence, hiding behind her roles as wife, mother, and nurse.

On September 11th 2001, after dropping her daughter off at childcare, she answered her cell phone oblivious to the fact that she was about to be shaken out of her hiding place and awakened to her own gifts of intuition, clairaudience, and healing. In Full Voice is a story about one woman's triumphant journey through trauma, loss, grief, illness (and even a flood) that led her to find her own voice so that she can help others uncover and share their own gifts with the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fiona Havlish
• Release date: Aug 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9780990404712

Fiona Havlish

Fiona Havlish is an intuitive healer through the use of life’s transformational wake up calls. She has a BSN degree, is a reiki master, and success coach who works through the energetic spiritual realm. She currently lives in Boulder Colorado with her daughter, Michaela, where she enjoys sharing her newest energy practice, Raindrop Technique, and singing duets with her Boston Terrier, Molly, who is an amazing singer herself.

Book preview

In Full Voice

Shedding The Labels That Silenced Me

A Memoir

Fiona Havlish

Copyright 2015 Fiona M. Havlish. All rights reserved.

Published by Kettle Hawk Press

Lafayette, CO

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher/author, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

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Smashwords Edition

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ISBN 978-0-9904047-1-2

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs

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Dedication

To my father, Edward R. Stone for being the greatest story teller I have ever had the privilege of knowing. You taught me the importance of changing and healing lives through stories. You continue to inspire me daily.

Contents

Author’s Note

Preface

One – Winston Churchill and Me

Two – Fallen Towers

Three – Aftermath

Four – Toolie

Five – Closing Ground Zero

Six – To Live or Die

Seven – Gratitude Trip

Eight – A Thin Blue Line

Nine – Fifty-Four and I Want More

Ten – St. Michael

Eleven – A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Author’s Note

This book is a memoir. It is my story and to the best of my knowledge the events shared in this book are as they occurred. Many of the people in the book are named with their agreement, and a few of the names have been changed to maintain their privacy. The people in this book continue on their journeys and I am grateful for the moment their journey touched mine. If there are any mistakes I do most humbly apologize.

Preface

Each of us is born with a unique voice and an inner guidance system that talks to us in times of need, crisis, and growth. This firm, quiet, stable, yet forceful voice encourages us to live up to our purpose. The Voice speaks through clairaudience (hearing), Claircognizance (knowing), and clairsentience (feeling) and a multitude of other ways. This is the voice of truth. It never deviates from the truth that is meant for you. I visualize my inner voice as a golden thread that leads me through this life. There were times in my life when the thread got tied up in the jumble of labels I have taken on—speech-impaired daughter, dutiful nurse, perfect ’50s housewife, devoted mother. People would put labels on me, and I would interpret that as an expectation of who I needed to be to make them happy, and I would do my best to live up (or down) to it. I never wanted anyone to be disappointed in me or with me. Avoiding the disappointment of others was a driving force in my life.

There is nothing like a crisis to help you grow into who you were meant to be. When I lost my husband Don on 9/11, I felt frightened at first. All of a sudden I had been stripped of my sense of me. Whoever I’d known myself to be was gone. I didn’t know who I was any more. I was thrust into a situation so bizarre that there were no rules to follow. No social standards or guidebooks to show the way. And I was handed a new set of labels—victim, widow, stoic.

The only thing I knew was that I had to get up each morning and do my best to create an environment of some normalcy for my children and me. In the days and months that followed, I’d sit and wonder what the purpose of 9/11 was. I looked at the numbers 911 and thought what’s the emergency? What were we not paying attention to? What was I not seeing?

I eventually came to realize that the events of that day were a profound wake up call. One door slammed shut, and another was yanked open, and I was thrust through it and into a new way of being. With the old labels stripped away, I realized I have the power to choose which labels I accept. Although tragic, sad, and devastating, 9/11 was the catalyst that began my spiritual awakening and through the many twists and turns that followed, I learned to bring my inner voice forward. No longer keeping my wisdom locked within me, I have learned to speak up and be my own advocate. I have learned to stand up to bullies and share my voice to impact others. If you have ever felt your dreams squashed and your voice squelched, I hope that through reading this you will give yourself permission to acknowledge and share your inner voice, to lose the labels that others have placed on you, and to live full-out the life you were meant for. Only now am I beginning to live the life I dreamed of as a child. I wish the same for you.

One

Winston Churchill and Me

I swear our car has got to be the oldest car around! I raged in my head as my mother drove us to the Jersey Shore for another one of our sessions. Her clunky green station wagon’s hard, cracked greyish-green vinyl seats smelled sour from the sloshing over of spilt raw milk that she picked up every few days from the Biodynamic Farm attached to the Kimberton Waldorf School I attended. She brought the milk home in a can that would sometimes tip over when she drove around a curve too fast.

Odd as this may seem for a twelve-year-old girl, I didn’t want to go to the beach. First off, the two-hour drive to get there meant a total of four unbearable hours confined with my mother in her smelly old car. Second, we were not going to enjoy the sun and surf. It was a cold November day, and my mother’s mission was to cure me of my speech impediment.

It all started about nine days after my sixth birthday, when my parents brought home my new baby sister. I had thought of her as my birthday present until she arrived home and was placed in my room after which everything I had known to be normal vanished. I had been the center of my parent’s universe until she arrived, and I was pushed aside. My sister became the center and stayed there. This is not her fault, of course, but the fact remains that once my sister was put in my room, I had to be quiet. From then on, any attempts at communication were met with a stern, Shush! You’ll wake the baby!

The situation got much worse when my mother hired a woman to help her with laundry, cleaning, and cooking, so she could focus on caring for my sister. This woman decided to make me her little helper, and I played along until the day she handed me an armful of dirty diapers (circa 1963 before disposable ones) and told me to wash them out in the sink. I was totally grossed out, and I began to cry. I went running up the stairs to tell my mom when this woman shooed me away saying my mother was busy with my sister and to be quiet.

This was the first time in my life I had been blocked from seeing my mother. I felt confused, hurt, sad, unwanted, and unloved. I slumped away outside, hid under the huge Forsythia Bush that sat in a far corner of the front yard, and I cried and cried.

Mother’s helper-woman later yelled at me for not cleaning the diapers. I clamped my mouth shut, held in all my anger, sadness, and hurt and decided I would never speak to this woman ever again.

That decision altered my ability to speak to anyone. All of a sudden I began stuttering. I was no longer able to talk smoothly to complete a question or a thought. The stuttering interrupted everything that came out of my mouth. When I attempted to speak to others, it took me so long to express myself that people got bored with waiting, so I spoke less and less. I began to go inward and do way more listening than sharing.

The voice within me spoke with perfect clarity and eloquence. In the outer world, I stuttered any time I tried to say words that began with the letters C, F, G, H, K, L, M, P, S, or T. Which pretty much meant I couldn’t speak one thought without it being interrupted by a stutter. Even my own name began with F.

I’d overhear my parents’ friends discussing me in hushed tones and kind voices. Poor Fiona. It must be so difficult for her that she stutters so badly. Does Fiona have any friends?

I really don’t know, my mother answered. Fiona doesn’t talk about it. She reads books all the time.

When I was five, my parents brought me to a Christmas party for the Waldorf teachers and their children. It was a few nights before Christmas Eve, and the house was filled with joy and had the festive smell of cloves, cinnamon, pine, and fresh baked cookies. The Christmas tree and all the rooms were lit only with candles creating a soft light in each room. The adults played Christmas music on the piano, violin, flute, cello, and lyre. Those who didn’t play an instrument sang.

They soon sent eight other children and me upstairs to play, and since I was the oldest, I took charge. We decided to play doctor and patient, and, being the oldest, I assumed the role of doctor. I climbed onto the sink and went to medicine cabinet to look for the right cure for my patients. I found a bottle of beautiful little red pills, and because it was Christmas, I thought they’d be perfect.

Everyone lined up to see the doctor. I gave each child a red pill and if they said they were not better, I gave out more. This went on for maybe twenty minutes when I suddenly heard a voice emerge from within.

Fiona, you must go and get your mother. The Voice said in a calm, yet firm and clear tone. Hearing the Voice scared me, but having to get my mother scared me even more, so I answered inside, No.

The Voice was persistent and insistent, regardless of how much I tried to ignore it or argue with it. I felt as though it was pushing me out of the room towards the stairs. I stopped fighting and went down, found my mother and told her what I’d done. I remember her looking concerned. She gathered up the other moms and they all ran up the stairs.

She asked for the bottle of pills. I gave it to her and her eyes widened. Suddenly a mom was on the phone explaining that six children had been given aspirin and what should they do? They asked me how many pills I had given to each one, and I couldn’t remember. I thought maybe four or five. I began to feel very frightened. I knew I had done something wrong that had hurt the children and not made them better.

I realized how fragile life was and how easily it could be taken away. This frightened me so deeply that I made a deal with God that if all the children lived I would give my life to keeping people alive, beginning with my family.

The party ended with six children being put into cars and taken to the hospital. They all had their stomachs pumped and all survived and were home by Christmas Eve.

Afterwards, I often wondered about the Voice and what it was, but I never asked anyone. I was afraid if people knew I heard a voice in my head they would think I was nuts. At the same time, I trusted it.

By first grade, I had become a voracious reader. Reading excited me and took me away from my lonely life at home. When my teacher called on me for my turn to read to the class, I was thrilled because I knew what a great reader I was. I stood up to read, and I began to stutter. The fact I was nervous made the stuttering worse. I worked hard to read aloud, stomping my foot when I couldn’t say a letter. Anger seemed to help steady my voice.

The teacher lost patience and told me to sit down. In the four years that I had her as a teacher, she never once asked me to read aloud again. She skipped over me every day as though I didn’t exist.

The other kids started to label me retarded. I knew it was a derogatory term, but I didn’t know what it meant until second grade when a class of Down Syndrome and other developmentally disabled children came to our school to see a play. One of the boys in my class pointed to them, laughed and said, Look at those retards! Why are they here? And then he proceeded to imitate them. Ire rose in me. I wanted to tell him to stop, and I wondered, Is that me? Am I retarded?

I was not invited to most birthday parties, and when I was invited; it was because the parents wanted my father to come. He was headmaster of the Waldorf School and one of its most loved teachers.

My mother blamed my stuttering on the fact that I sucked my thumb, but I gave that up at age eight when I was offered a brand new bike if I stopped. The stuttering, however, did not stop, and Mom became more concerned and began